Lovers are Lunatics
by Feral Phoenix
Summary: It's easier to save the world than it is to live a normal life. Tony Foster is not sure why that is, but it's true and it's kind of annoying when facing existential questions like What Now. -Tanya Huff, Smoke series, TonyxLee. For Crazed Fuzzle.-


Lovers are Lunatics

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Smoke trilogy, Tony, or Lee. Tanya Huff does. This story is a gift for Crazed Fuzzle, who has been known to wish (loudly) that there were more writing for this fandom.

It would start with a slow fade in.

The shot would be fuzzy at first, but it would become more and more clear on a close-up of the room ahead: The tables, the chairs, the drawn curtains. The light filtering through said curtains would give the scene a warm glow, and the camera would stay there for a while. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, it would begin to pan to the side, giving the viewer a still-life of the room, a portrait that would have to gloss over the occasional spots of clutter on the floor. It'd stay at the same height for a while, then, only beginning to angle down once the corner of the bed became visible in the lens. And then it would drift a little faster, slowing along the rumpled fluff of slept-in sheets until the shot rested right there, framing the head and shoulders of the currently-sleeping-but-overwhelmingly-sexy Lee Nicholas.

Tony Foster sat there for about another half a minute with his fingers in a disconnected rectangle, miming the sidescreen of a camcorder, before facing forwards again and flopping back onto his pillows.

Yes, sir, that's _exactly _how he'd direct the opening to this particular episode of the Adventures of Wizardman and Actorboy.

Considering the number of fans of _Darkest Night—_the vampire-detective show Tony was a staff member for—who fantasized loudly and longingly about there being a scene between the show's male leads just like it, Tony was pretty damn sure that just that shot would win the episode top ratings for its time slot.

Really, what more could you want from a good action special? Ex-street kid turned wizard saves the world not once, not twice, but three times—_while _keeping his day job—and finally, after all that hard work and effort, manages to get the guy. Three cheers for the forces of good.

Hip, hip, hurray!

And, okay, some of that enthusiasm was even genuine. Because in all honesty, even having had one night of blow-the-roof-off sex with a guy like Lee Nicholas had a way of making six months of Shadowlords, haunted houses, Demonic Convergences, and being barely off the bottom rung of the corporate ladder worth it.

Or… well, if not worth it, it sure had a way of putting those kinds of things into perspective.

Let's just leave it with the old adage of "All's well that ends well", shall we?

At any rate, Tony had a satisfactory ending for now to the story of his hectic and crazy career of wizardry/trainee assistant director-dom. Directoring. Directing? …Whatever.

It was satisfactory enough to make him really wonder why more directors never seemed to bother with good morning-after scenes. Just looking around his decidedly messy apartment right now was giving him a good case of the warm fuzzies.

It was too bad they couldn't stay here a little longer, relish some more of the hard-won privacy they'd enjoyed last night. But, hey, the writers had finished the scripts for the first few episodes of the second season, and the very formidable Chester Bane wanted the cast and crew there for an idea of where _Darkest Night _would be headed now. Oh, well.

Hiatus never lasted forever.

Since he didn't know how long his personal hiatus from the wonderful world of the weird and metaphysical would last—not a day went by that Tony didn't think of the conversation he'd had with his vampire ex Henry about the fact he'd likely wind up saving the world a lot more in the future—well, he'd just bask in the normalcy.

Even if it _did _interfere sometimes with the exploring-said-normalcy-with-Lee thing.

He'd bask in both normalcies. Intermittently. Or something like that.

Making an admirable effort not to pout, Tony carefully slid out of bed and scanned the floor, looking around for the clean pair of underwear and pants he knew had to be around here _somewhere. _Man, it was getting hard to find clothes since he'd lost the convenience of an immortal Demongate constantly nagging him to do his laundry.

After a few minutes' worth of shuffling piles of dirty clothes and garbage he kept meaning to toss but never got around to actually throwing out, Tony succeeded in unearthing a pair of boxers that looked unworn and a pair of jeans that he'd certainly had on once or twice before but which didn't have any evidence of blood, sweat, ash, or pizza stains on them. Reveling a little in the triumph, Tony pulled both on and proceeded to try to find a shirt.

Maybe it was time to get a little more proactive on the laundry front.

He was interrupted after only a few moments by creaking sounds from the mattress, and glanced up to see that Lee was sitting up, running a hand through sleep-rumpled hair and blinking.

"Oh. Shit. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you…"

Lee blinked and frowned. "You didn't—well, I guess you did, but not like you think. You just… weren't there."

Tony's heart, which had been doing an uneven kind of two-step in his chest since Lee had sat up, did a strange little jump and from the feel of things in there was now attempting some kind of crazy Irish jig. But apparently from the lurching sensation Tony had in the vague area of his chest, it couldn't carry off the dance very well. It should either knock it off, or get lessons.

_God, shut _up, _brain!_

Well, it was Lee's fault anyway for being sleepy enough to say that kind of thing with a straight face. It was a line straight out of one of Henry's goddamn romance novels, for holy fuck's sake.

Apparently Lee was also too sleepy to notice the sudden redness of Tony's face, because he just blinked again and frowned again and asked, "Why are you up trying to find clothes now, anyway? It's still morning. You should be in bed." _With me. So we can have another go at breaking your crappy mattress, since we haven't managed that yet._

Of course, that kind of subtext made Tony want to start twirling like a ballerina for real, but there was after all a reason he was trying to get dressed and he could dance no better than his heart.

_Shut up, brain. Now._

"Wouldn't mind it—being back in bed—" And didn't _that _subtext just carry like he'd shouted it into a megaphone? As his ears reddened to match his face, he added quickly, "They've got the scripts ready, remember? CB was insisting we be there and everything. I think there's gonna be talk about press conferences, too…" For whatever press there was that was interested in spreading rumors about the next season of TV's most popular (and, okay, TV's _only) _syndicated vampire detective.

"Ah." Lee glanced around, spotted his own clothes hanging over the arm of a chair. "…Press conferences. My favorite."

"Why worry?" Tony wanted to know, holding up an old white tee and examining it for conspicuous stains. "You know Mason'll hog the spotlight; you'll barely have to do anything but smile at the crazy fans, which'll be enough for them. You know how the girls…"

Oh. Well. Falling silent, Tony frowned. Maybe _that _was what Lee'd been referring to—the fact that the press had gotten used to him going to press conferences or, really, any event in the public eye with the blonde du jour and, obviously, Lee hadn't picked up one of those for a while. Bought or borrowed or otherwise acquired.

And the press would be curious.

There was also the fact that this thing—the whole Lee-and-Tony thing—had just gotten off the ground and maybe Lee wasn't entirely sure how Tony would react to his scooping a (female) date for the sake of the cameras. Hell, _Tony _wasn't even sure how Tony would react to something like that. He supposed knowing Lee was his (his Tony's) where it counted would help smooth things over, but it might get a little sticky if said date expected tonsil hockeying or mattress dancing along with dinner, especially if it (the tonsil hockeying, if not the mattress dancing) occurred anywhere near him. Him Tony.

"I was thinking…" Lee said slowly. "What if I give the reporters something new to talk about for once, and head to the conference stag? We could grab a beer and a movie after, if you want."

That was all it took for a grin of jack-o-lantern proportions to spread across Tony's face.

"Yeah… yeah, that'll work great."

Suppressing the urge to try out a pirouette or two, Tony dragged the shirt over his head.

And that was when the door burst open.

Tony froze, his shirt still covering his face from the nose down, and stared as Amy burst in, demanding "Hey, _Tony, _are you coming to the script screening or—" Catching sight of Lee—still naked in bed, in Tony's bed—Amy stopped dead. Her eyes flicked obviously to Tony, then back to Lee, then to Tony again, and her eyebrows arched high. Her blue-lipsticked mouth formed a perfect _o _of surprise, and she covered it with the fingers of one hand—the nails of which were painted a matching electric blue—while kicking up one army-booted heel in grossly over-exaggerated shock. "Well, well, _well! _Look who's finally dropped a few meters on the scale of utter patheticness!"

Jerking his shirt's collar down, Tony tried to work up an impressive glare. He had the feeling he was failing miserably. "First, why the hell didn't you _knock, _and second, why do you have a key to my apartment?!"

"'Cause your friend Henry made me one so I could watch you when you were being difficult during the whole Demonic Convergence thing," Amy replied cheerfully. Both her heels were firmly on the ground, and she was rocking back on them, still staring at him and Lee with an expression of fiendish glee. "Still! I think you'd've had the decency to _tell _us, so we could finally stop considering you two to be the crowning achievements of pathetic, closeted masculinity!"

Tony wasn't sure what that meant and wasn't sure he wanted to know. All he was really sure of was that Amy needed to get gone, so that Lee could get dressed and the two of them could avoid getting skinned by CB. "Amy, could you just give us a little _privacy?"_

"Sure, sure, no prob! Don't be too late to the meeting, though," she caroled, turning around and wiggling her fingers in an all-too-mischievous wave. "Just wait 'til I get to tell Jack and Zev about _this!"_

Tony's insides froze. "Tell Jack? Tell _Jack Elson _and Zev? At the studio? Amy, are you _insane? _Henry's new boy toy—his _tabloid reporter boy toy!—_is still hanging around the studio! If you have to spread it around, wait at least until—"

Amy just laughed and danced out into the hall, slamming the door behind her.

Normalcy. _Right._

Tony had forgotten how much problematic coworkers had to do with that whole normalcy thing he'd been trying to embrace.

"Lee. Clothes on. _Now."_

"Already on it," came the reply, a little strained around the sounds of pants being hiked up.

If this was normal—no. No, even with things like this to deal with in day-to-day life, Tony still did not prefer a return to the metaphysical.

There'd be more episodes of the Adventures of Wizardman and Actorboy soon enough.

**(…end.)**


End file.
